Wednesday, January 16, 2008

WFMW - Laundry

This is yet another ridiculously simple contribution to the "Works For Me Wednesday" file. Simply put, I don't do my kids laundry. (But I do supervise their adept efforts!)

I have been training my boys (AGES 6 and 3) how to do their own laundry from start to finish. One or the other (or both) has learned how to:

carry or drag laundry baskets downstairs to the laundry room

sort clothes into darks and lights

set and start the washing machine and dryer

add the appropriate amount of soap/dryer sheets

transfer clothes from one machine to another

sort laundry into "ownership piles"

put their own clothes away

Do note that I never mentioned anything about folding laundry. That is because I have decided that you don't really need to fold shirts and jeans. We hang church shirts that ought to be hung, but everything else just fits into appropriate drawers - unfolded. The time saved from not requiring folding is astounding, and honestly, this is my favorite part of my WFMW.

Someday, I imagine, my Type A child will prefer to have his clothes unwrinkled and will eagerly master the steps to a perfectly folded shirt, but my "more creative child" will likely always see wrinkles as a delightful part of a shirt's design. For that child, I will be pleased that the clothes make it off the floor and into a drawer.

It took several months of training each task individually, and it will take several more months before the whole thing will be done unsupervised but what we have going right now WORKS FOR ME!

I never saw this before! Yikes! This is awesome! Just today some ladies with older kids were talking about how they don't do their kids laundry at all, and I was trying to ask what ages they started that, and they couldn't tell me. Well, THANK YOU for telling me! :) I've been having the boys switch the laundry from washer to dryer, and to lay clothes flat for me (for folding--NO MORE!), and they help sort socks and stuff...But this is GREAT!! Thanks for the idea!! :)